Odorous air associated with toilets has long been a concern of many bathroom designers. The art contains various proposals for solving this concern.
One such proposal has included an exhaust fan located in a wall or ceiling of the room. This fan is operated by a switch to exhaust the air from the room. This is a common solution, but has several disadvantages. For example, the actual physical structure of the room must be modified to accommodate the fan assembly. This is not as much of a problem during initial construction; however, retrofitting a room may create some problems. Furthermore, these exhaust fan assemblies are not as efficient as they could be since they must move all of the air in the room to create the desired exhaust effect. This is not only inefficient, it can be wasteful of energy since some quantities of air that need not be moved are moved by such systems. These systems also tend to be somewhat noisy as well.
Therefore, there is a need for an odorous air removal system for use with a water closet that is efficient, quiet, energy-efficient and does not require alteration of the room structure to install or retrofit.